NYC Triathlon and Altitude Attitude Adjustments!

Long time no write! Between some traveling on both our parts (Amanda is actually still away, but more on that in a moment), there hasn't been much time to write, nor much to write about, training-wise, as it has been pretty consistent thus far, until the past week!
Neither of us has spent much time at altitude...my time has pretty much been limited to assorted ski trips over the years, when I'm too focused on my imminent doom and my pounding heart and a zillion other tings to really worry about something so inconsequential as air. But I took a little "family trip" out to Snowmass/Aspen, CO with the hubs and the hound and while I felt great on the hikes we did (Sasha was SUCH a champ, I can't even properly put it in to words!), when I rented a very nice road bike from the folks at Aspen Velo, I was in for a very rude surprise.

My Everest!

I'll first state the obvious and say that there is no flat riding Aspen/Snowmass.  You're either going up a mountain or down one.  I suppose you could cut across the center of the Roaring Fork Valley, but that's Highway 82 and while the guys at the bike store said it "was totally cool to ride on it," that didn't seem like a very good idea to me, as there were no real shoulders, not on the highway nor the other roads.   And the hills are not hills.  They are mountains.  6-8 mile steady climbs are the norm, and it's literally just up and up, no straights to rest or catch your breath.  And here's where the lungs started to burn, then the legs, and before I got the pass-outs, I would have to pull off the road and de-clip (hard to do when you're already going so damn slow it's hard to stay up as it is), and gasp for air while waving off kindly motorists who were asking if I needed help.  I would get so frustrated that by the end of the week, I almost broke down in tears! It was probably one of the most disheartening moments when it came to IMAZ training thus far, and the downhills didn't help me catch my breath/rest either, because now it is just down and down and down and it's windy and terrifying!

This was about what I felt like on those hills

But I guess that's why the real toughies go train at altitude and really stick it out for a whole season for their bodies to adapt.  It obviously would be possible in a few days, but I did come back feeling stronger and will never ever fear anything I come across out east (at least until I try to tackle Bear Mountain, although at least that is at sea level!!).  My best workout was a 15 mile ride (so basically 7 up and 8 down)) and then I ran about 8 miles back to where we were staying in Snowmass, essentially straight back up the mountain on a trail.  Running was hard as hell, too, but somehow easier to work through than biking, likely because during long uphill spells on which I was super winded, I could slow down to a shuffle and catch my breath, which just isn't possible for me on the bike.  And I could run on the trail too, which helped a lot mentally, too, since I didn't have to worry about cars or see that daunting black stretch of road go up and on and on!

I got back to NYC on Friday and the NYC Triathlon was Sunday, and while I felt a bit wobbly on my Cervelo after a week on a road bike to start, I was quite pleased with my race! I took four minutes off from last year, and though the heat and humidity was pretty insane, I felt really strong on the run and bike, and ironically, I think where I messed up was the swim! I just don't think I was as aggressive as I could have been, and veered around too much instead of holding a better line, and my time could have definitely been a minute or two faster, whoops.  My transitions felt solid (the NYC Tri has about a 600-700 meter barefoot run from the swim exit to transition, so there's 3-4 minutes right there) and I could have been a touch more aggressive on the bike downhills (the course has a lot of rolling hills), but the conditions of the road we bike on can be a bit treacherous (LOADS of divots and potholes and joists and rumble strips) and I didn't want to risk a bust or a flat, and tried to make up for it on any stretch of freshly paved road, flats and uphills.

I got 9th in my age group, yay, and looking at the splits of the other girls (esp the top 3), I'm right on par with them in terms of swim and run (in fact, my run was faster than most) but they're 10 minutes ahead on the bike...still a lot of improvement to be made there!

And now for an update on Miss Amanda.  Speaking of altitude, the 8,000 feet of Snowmass/Aspen is small potatoes compared to where she is: Leadville, Colorado, the second highest city in the entire US, and the staging ground for the infamous Leadville 100 Ultramarathon featured in Born to Run at a nutty 11,000 feet.  Amanda is in Leadville for an Army/field medicine training course that works out the intricacies of field medicine/trauma, etc. at high altitude.  Very badass, and they're doing a lot of bivoucing, etc. so she should have some interesting stories about her experiences upon her return! She isn't going to have any time for any swimming/biking/running, but hiking around in full body armor with her field kit/pack/etc. at 11,000+ feet has got to do more for mental toughness than anything else, not to mention those lungs!

P.S.: while hiking the Rim Trail, we saw Lance Armstrong.  Sasha tried to sniff his mountain bike, and he smiled at us. He was on the phone, so no chance for further dialog.

Call me the insomniatic wizard!

Anyone who has known me since high school will know that I'll have this reoccurring bouts of insomnia.  Nothing that warrants medication, but annoying nonetheless.  Usually it is nothing more than a classic case of "monkey brain," where you can't turn it off, and lord knows there were a lot of sleepless nights senior year of college, when the whole "where is my life going?!" just spins around and around, totally unconcerned to the fact that you have swim practice at 6:30am.   I've gotten better at coping with it over the years, and usually of course the best remedy is being exhausted from working out, because then I'll just pass out before I have a chance to start thinking, but sometimes it just doesn't work out that way.  And the past couple days, I just have not been able to fall asleep at a reasonable hour, which makes getting up early to work out that much more difficult.  Usually after a couple days it abates, but boy is it the most inconvenient thing to pop up during a busy work (and workout) week.

Which brings me to the second word, wizard, in reference to [NERD ALERT] the Lord of the Rings where Gandalf, the wizard, laments to Aragorn about how "3,000 years I have walked this Earth, and now I have no time," when pressed to make a speedy (and time sensitive) journey.

Come between me and a good nights sleep and I will END you!

I am actually a pretty efficient person as a rule, but admit to wasting time here and there, mostly spent giving Sasha belly rubs (although that can hardly be considered a bad waste of time).  As Amanda said in her last post, we are in the Aerobic stage of our training grid, and the workouts are getting looonger.  Hence the issue of TIME.  Even though the days are longer now (yay summer!) it's just not feasible to do a three hour workout after the work day ends.  She needs to study, I can't be confident I'll get away from the office/computer/whatever crisis is looming by 5 or 6 (nor do I want to be completing a long ride at 9pm), and so morning it needs to be.  Plus, now that NYC is starting to get sticky, it will be cooler in the a.m., too.

So far the distance building has been going well.  Amanda and I did a 10 miler in the Sacramento, California HEAT on Sunday and felt quite good--wasn't even sore!--and we've had great swims and lifts this week (she chided me on my push up form this weekend, so have been verrry diligent about getting my chin all the way to the ground). 

I'll be doing a smaller run this afternoon (fartleks + six mile lope) and then a long bike tomorrow (50 miles in Central Park...not quite comfortable yet riding on the roads/9W on a week day).  Saturday is REUNIONS down at Princeton (yay!) and then Sunday I'll do another 9-10 mile run.   That long ride is the trickiest, but I'm determined to get out of bed on Friday with the birds and get it done!

Heads are heavy. Legs are amazing.

When Amanda started her Brain Module in her anatomy class recently, she had two things to say:

1. Brains are cool.  She already likes it better than the kidney and lung, if she were to rank her "favorite organs" like one would rank one's favorite animals.

2. Brains are heavy.  Surprisingly so. When she held one in her hands after taking it out of the cadaver (yikes!), that was her takeaway.

I may not know much about brains beyond what she tells me, and despite my paradoxical goals at college to simultaneously expand my mind through reading, class and brilliant professors while simultaneously killing brain cells through shots of Popoff Vodka and far too many helpings of cheap beer, I can at least now attest through personal experience that brains, and therefore, heads, are heavy.

The neglect to mention the neck and head!

I had a lovely 33-ish mile bike ride on Saturday, the first on my Cervelo since last autumn, and while my legs felt in fairly decent shape thanks to the trainer, my neck started killing me after about an hour.  I realize now that it was because holding my head up in the aero position was using all these strange muscles in my neck that hadn't really been used before.  I always tried to stick in aero during the trainer sessions, but never realized that it was not just the arms and back but the neck/head, too.  I was always looking around/watching the TV/whatever.  When I am actually ON the bike, I have to have it forward 99% of the time so that I can see where the hell I'm going and watch for rumble strips, potholes, wayward pedestrians, etc.

So I spent the remainder of Saturday with a sore neck, but a few aspirin, a light 2 mile job with Sasha, and a FANTASTIC MICHIGAN BASKETBALL VICTORY cure everything, as does a good nights sleep. Today, my neck felt fine, and I had a nice swim to further loosen it.  2,000 yards total, and then a 6 mile run in the park right afterwards.  I was a bit worried my legs would feel weak/sore/tired after the bike yesterday, but I felt great on the run! Loose and smooth.  Granted, a swim-run is not a bike-run/brick, but the legs seemed to adapt to the relative fatigue level I was feeling when I started amazingly well.  

Week 6 starts next week, and to coincide with the warmer weather, bricks and outdoor riding are starting in earnest.  I need it!

Alpine training and rentry

While Amanda was being a dutiful granddaughter and flying across the country to see our grandparents (I am going in March/April), I was being a decadent newlywed with the husband and taking an impromptu trip to Austria.  We had cashed in all of our American Express points and got two tickets to Vienna, which for me, is the city of joy.  It's purely subjective, but "to me, it is perfect," to crib off of "Love Actually."  Don't get me wrong, I love New York, and London, Paris, Saint Petersburg, are all fantastic, but Vienna has this strange combination of being a manageable size, not too crowded, aesthetically beautiful, filled with history, and the music is right up my ally.  I'm a huge classical music nerd, from Opera to symphony, to string quartets (in Mozart's house, natch) and solo piano, with a bit of ballet tossed in for flavor, it was all within walking distance from our hotel.  Heaven!

The hillllls are alive!

And it isn't like I couldn't get all of that in NYC, but you just don't, because wherever you live in your real life, you're too busy doing all the things that accompany real life (work, laundry, family obligations, social obligations, TRAINING), but when on a mini vacation, you can! So we did.  And it was perfect! I would do runs around the Ringstrasse, around the Opera House and Hapsburg palaces by day, with some museum-ing after lunch, and then shower, nap and music in the evening.  This is why it is my city of joy!

One thing that put a bit of a damper in my Viennese jaunt was the fact that after a few days in Vienna we were scheduled to go into the Alps for skiing.  Skiing is my nemesis.  I stink at it, am terrified to death of it (hence the stinking, and then therefore more fear, etc. etc.), and the knee on the leg that I broke a few years ago has always been a bit wobbly.  It's never given me any problems running, but it is just a bit unstable when it comes to sudden side-to-side movements or something, and will pop out and then pop back in.  It hurts like crazy, and can happen at the weirdest times (once it happened while I was jumping up during a funny picture), and so I was skittish about it happening on skis with the IronMan on the horizon, as one day, it is going to pop out and not go back in.

I love these babies!

But when we got to Saint Christophe, the conditions were insane! And they don't groom their slopes in Europe, and after 3 days of non-stop, white-out snow, the hubs said that it was going to be way to hard for me to ski...he could barely manage, and he's good! So we went snow shoe-ing, which was AWESOME! The Alps are so gorgeous, and this way, I could actually enjoy them instead of sweating buckets of fear, AND get a good cardio workout in the process! The snow was almost up to my waist, so snow shoeing was quite challenging, and also the lack of skiing meant I would just hang out in the "Fitness Center" and do runs on the treadmill (shorter ones, since the altitude would kill me after about 5K), and then lots of pushups, squats, lunges, and knee/joint strengthening exercises, and the like.  I was as sore as a mofo afterwords--and by the end, my lungs felt strong!

When I got back to NYC/sea level, I went for a seven mile run and felt great, despite being on a plane for the entire day prior, and now it is back in the saddle for real.  I had essentially one last big romantic trip and now my main relationship will probably be with my bike for the next eight months. And one thing this did reinforce for me is to keep up the "dryland"/strength training for the ol' joints on the side in addition to focusing on the aerobic base.

Race recovery

To echo Amanda's latest post, we had a great, if extremely cold, half-marathon on Sunday! I was quite pleased with our 8:10/mile pace, and while I was definitely sore yesterday and this morning, I learned from Amanda that I can be a bit more aggressive with my out-going pace on longer runs that I have been.  I tend to start them out very conservatively and then when I am halfway, start to turn it on, but I can clearly be more aggressive, as I felt like I was really moving for the first 6 miles on Sunday, and was able to still finish strong, as we almost even-split the race.  Truth be told, some of that might have been due to the cold.  I have a feeling our first mile was the slowest, as by the time the gun went off, even though we had only been waiting around from 10-15 minutes, my toes were truly NUMB.

Not us.

But as far as pacing goes, Amanda is the opposite, or at least so she says.  She tends to take it out too aggressively and really die at the end, so us racing together was a good learning experience for us both! I think a lot of my soreness is from the mini fartlek's we were doing in the beginning to zip around people, as well as all the clenching we did in the beginning at at the end of the race as we scooted back to our room at NYC, clutching our space blankets, bagels and frozen apples.  Also, I didn't hydrate very much during the race, since the water was ice water (or frozen) and I didn't want to get my already freezing hands wet! Or my face! I was really jealous of all the people who had those big balaclavas over their faces.  I brought a neck gaiter to wear in the beginning, but ended up taking it off after 4 miles, as then I was just getting sweaty on my neck while still being cold everywhere else!

After the race, I swam a bit with the hubs (like, about 500 yards verrry slowly) and then got in the hot tub and sauna for a bit to stretch and continue warming back up.  I did a real swim with the NYAC tri club on Monday night, which felt great and definitely helped move any last bit of soreness out of my legs.  Today, I was a bit stiff in the morning when I woke up in my calves but did a nice hour-long spin on the trainer.   I did some interval work, and then some serious stretching afterwords.  I think I will be 100% tomorrow and ready to keep back at it! I think Amanda and I will have a great running base built up by the time the weather gets warm and we can kick it in to gear with the biking, which is going to be our biggest hurdle for the Iron Man, as it is definitely our weakest link of the three, and also the longest segment by FAR.   If we can drop in 15-18+ mile runs no problem by early spring time, I feel like we'll be in great shape to start building up our base on the rides, and focus on running off the bike, too.

Pacework on a crammed schedule

I was hoping to take advantage of the warm day yesterday to log in at least 8, perhaps even 10 miles in Central Park, but since people would not. stop. calling. me. (or screwing up what they were supposed to have completed two days ago for that matter) I was WAY behind schedule and had dinner plans but was determined to get a run in and had left my gear at NYAC (near central park) on purpose.  By the time I got out of the office, up to NYAC, and changed, I had literally 30 minutes to run, and then 10 minutes to get back to the locker-room, change (no shower, just a towel-off), and be back outside getting on the subway. 

Quick like a Bunny! But not a morning pug (or person for that matter)

Sadly, the 6 mile loop is not possible for me in 30 minutes...if it were, I would be happily living large off my endorsements!  But could I bang out 4? Off I go (sans hat so I wouldn't get my hair sweaty and thus hide the fact that I had not showered once at dinner....vanity! vanity!), pounding it out as fast as I could. 

'Round the loop I go, and holding steady 7:25 pace, wheeling back through the doors of NYAC and into the locker room with almost a minute to spare.  How a four-mile hard factors in to my over all Iron Man training scheme I'll never know, but sometimes it is all about the small victories and just getting something, anything, in when the real world is closing in around you.  Plus, even though I was definitely pushing my pace, I still felt in control the entire time and never like I was about to die or fall severely off.  

And yet, while this is all very well and good, it just reinforces the notion that once I hit the start of my formal training plan at around the 7 month mark, all workouts must be taken care of in the morning during the week, with few exceptions.  There is just too much that crops up during the day that encroaches on a late-afternoon/p.m. workout, especially once I factor in travel time and the fact that my actual workout time is going to get longer and longer.   Time to start getting in better habits now!  I am NOT a morning person, so there will be some grumpiness in the future, but nothing coffee can't fix.  You'd think that all those years of early-morning swim practices since the age of 15 would have fixed this, but I actually think it has made me crave sleeping in even MORE!

I can still swim!

I love it when I manage to surprise myself! After a much more hedonistic weekend than I had planned (including going out on a SUNDAY to a NYC chef/sommelier party that one of my writers was a part of), I was slightly dreading a group swim with some of my NYAC tri club teammates, secretly wishing I could enjoy the solitude of a solo plop 'n flop.

Wow-wee!

But I am glad I pulled my finger out and rallied, as one of the guys that showed up is also a former college swimmer, and after a warm up and kick set, we did 300, 200, 100 twice on 1:15 pace, first round swim, second round pull.  Doesn't seem like much, but let me tell you, I haven't done anything on 1:15 page is YEARS.   Probably not since my first year our of Princeton! Ha! I didn't think I had it in me, but I guess I am in better shape than I thought, perhaps thanks to not letting my marathon conditioning on the run flag or that dang trainer, which is both my best friend and nemesis these past few weeks!

Tomorrow is supposed to be in the mid-to-high 40's, so a run will be in order, but in the meantime, when I do get back in the pool I need to be better about challenging myself a bit more on my intervals!

How to fit it all in?!

Yikes on several levels!

Ifyoufollow either of us on Facebook, you no doubt saw our SHOCKED posts about us qualifying for Age Group Nationals....it should be a blast to go, and I personally was especially thrilled since the two Olympic distance races I did last year both had slight snafus.  For the NYC Tri it was a zillion degrees (yes, that's technical term when high temperature is combined with city humidity, ha), and at the Nations Tri, my derailleur on my bike somehow got bumped either in transition or when I sent my bike down to DC from NYC, and I didn't realize it until I was on the race course, but I couldn't shift out of my bottom two gears!   The Nation's Tri course is notoriously flat and fast, so being in those tiny gears meant my legs were spinning like CRAZY for 90% of the race and I sort of coasted the whole way it seemed.  At least my legs were super fresh for the run, right?

And THEN, the next day, I learned I also made it in the Half-Iron distance, which is funny, because I've actually never done a half-iron race.  There must be some glitch in the system, because I did the Mighty Man Hamptons race in Montauk at the end of September, which has all three distances (sprint, Olympic, and half) over the course of the weekend, and I did the SPRINT with my husband, who was doing his first triathlon, so I thought it would be fun to do it together (and so I could make sure he had his goggles, shoes, towel, etc. He was so cute.  He had his swim cap on an hour before start time.  Put me in, coach!!).

Anyway, I did quite well in the spring, placing 3rd, and I guess being in the top 10% in my age group, according to that USAT email, but it was definitely NOT for half-iron! Oh well, I guess I'll have my pick come registration in February.  

But August seems VERY far away, as Amanda and I focus on just making it through until Christmas (work has been crisis after crisis after sh*t storm each day and Amanda is hunkering down for final exams for her first semester at med school) we are already looking ahead to the summertime, when the bulk of our training is going to be, and we both already have the NYC Tri on the schedule in July, and now AG Nationals, which will be great prep and a way to work out kinks (because sometimes, the best way to train for a triathlon is to DO triathlons!) but travel and a bit of pre-race rest will definitely have to be factored in to our training timeline so our long runs and rides are not affected. 

I pulled the plug on the real-world and have already come down to DC to see the fam for an early Christmas before heading down to Richmond to join the hubs and his family, and as it looks to be quite mild for the next few days, I hope to squeeze in a ride or two on the W&O trail along with some runs.  I have my old road bike stored in my parent's garage here.  I may try and go find some aero bars to pop on them, as I still need to get used to riding in that position for longer than minutes at a time when actually out on the road.

Run, Swim, Shop-Class

After a ten mile run at a fairly strong clip on Wednesday with some speed work/pacing at the end thrown in, I was craving a good swim to loosen up and flop out the legs in addition to working my upper body.  I went to the NYAC and swam 3,000 yards in what was probably one of the more mindless, and least creative swim sets I've come up with in a while, but I felt great and it was much needed for my legs, which were quite sore from the few hill-repeats I did.

About how I felt when I first jumped in the pool

500 smooth
500 pull with paddles breathing every 3, 5, 7, 5 by lap.
300 kick (75 fly kick on back, 75 backstroke kick, 150 free kick with board)
2 x 200 IM descend
3 x 100 free on 1:20 descend
5 x 200 free on 2:45.
100 warm down.

I then had a meeting with the NYAC tri club right after the swim to go over some agenda-things for next year.  My role in the club is pretty small--writing the monthly articles for our club's magazine, The Winged Foot-- and some of the team races we decided on should be a lot of fun (NYC Tri, some in the Hamptons/Long Island/NJ) but I probably will only participate in one or two, as this upcoming Ironman remains the priority.  I got in off the lottery (!) for the NYC Tri, which I will definitely race, because you can't get in off the lottery (it is the luck equivalent of finding a ziplock bag full of $20's on the sidwalk, I am convinced) and not participate!

This thing is the best!

Woke up today feeling better in the legs and a good sore in the upper bod.  I had a jammed schedule today at work and in the evening, so no workout on the docket today, but I DID adjust my bike seat ever so slightly in between a quick shower and change post-work, pre-dinner, as it was giving me some rubs and pressure in the wrong places and I had a free moment to fiddle with it.

Armed with my trusty "alien" tool, I moved it forward about a 1/3 of an inch, and WOW what a difference! It was just enough to redistribute some weight back to my butt/sit bones versus other less savory spots while in aero.  I had it professionally fitted at SBR in NYC, and they did a great job, but I guess you never know all the finessed points until you're actually on the bike and riding it for an extended period, and how your body weight settles in to all the strange pressure points! I had a feeling a few tweaks in order, and I am verry pleased I was able to do it myself in a few minutes.  I can barely hang a picture frame!

Chrissie Wellington to retire?

There is a bit of gossip flying around Twitter right now that Chrissie Wellington might be priming to announce her retirement in the coming weeks.  It isn't as if the woman deserves some rest, winning 13 straight Ironman/ironman races, including four world championships and writing a book along the way.

However, she became such a preeminent figure in the sport so quickly that I almost have a hard time imagining it without her.  I never felt that way about, say, Michael Phelps, whom I've followed in swimming basically my whole life since we're about the same age and from the same area.  Perhaps it was because I watched his career follow it's own amazing progression, and after London 2012, him retiring made perfect sense and just felt right.

With Chrissie, I guess I always felt that there was still more out there for her on the lava fields, but then again, I am new-er to following the sport of triathlon than I am swimming.  I haven't been following her since I was a high-schooler. Regardless, she's got a lot going for her and it will be fascinating to watch what she decides to do next if the rumors are indeed true.  No doubt it will be amazing!   

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/othersports/article-2241583/Iron-Lady-Chrissie-Wellington-retire.html